... the tide is turning
The most important thing of all, and this is a life lesson as well as
valuable information in regard to dealing with DoCS, is that your child comes
before all else. You may scoff at this. You may think that your child
does come before everything else. But in reality putting your child before all
else runs much deeper than people realise.
Putting your child before yourself, your spouse and everything else is the most important thing you ever have to do. As a parent, raising a child is solely about your child. Raising that child to become the best adult they can possibly be and putting yourself between your child and possible chaos to avert disaster.
Reading this page may be a hard pill to swallow, but it is the absolute bottom line when raising your child.
Putting your child first means that you put your child above yourself and above your spouse. Yes, you may be deeply in love with your spouse and they are your soul mate - but at the end of the day, they are less important than your child and that's cold hard fact.
If you find yourself in an abusive relationship, it is your duty as a responsible parent to extract your child from that situation. This does not mean that you should be the one to leave the family home. This means that you take responsible steps to ensure that your child is living in a safe environment. It may mean that you request that your spouse leaves the home, or it may mean that you seek police intervention to have your spouse removed from your home. Or, it may simply mean that you jump in the car with your child and go for a drive then return to the family home sometime later to have an important conversation with your spouse about the relationship you and he/she are exposing the child to. Of course, the action you take will depend on how extreme the domestic violence is... But in no uncertain terms should an abusive relationship be left ignored as this is a toxic environment for your child to be raised in.
The same can be said for the family home where drug use is occurring. If your child is living in an environment filled with syringes and such, take a moment to think about what kind of an example you are setting for your child.
Children are a product of their environment.
Think of this whole page topic as a "Law of Nature". Consider the female tiger... She wanders alone with her cub, raising it, teaching it how to hunt and how to develop skills for it's own solitary existence. But if something comes between her and her cub, she is a force to be reckoned with! She will not allow this to happen!
The same can be said for a lioness and her cubs. She will lay down her own life to protect her litter.
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